How does gene diversity develop if we all came from common ancestors?

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How does gene diversity develop if we all came from common ancestors?

In: Biology

3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Just to add onto the other answers, a slight mutation rate is actually built into us. It’s *possible* to make proteins (DNA polymerases) that are more accurate at replicating our DNA, but we don’t actually have them because some amount of diversity is good.

For a real-life example, the influenza virus has a relatively inaccurate polymerase, which causes lots more mutations, which is why it’s hard to make a perfect flu vaccine.

Anonymous 0 Comments

No one is 100% identical to their parents. Not even single celled organisms that basically split in half and clone themselves.

Each time a cell divides there are slight changes due to errors and that will accumulate over many generations. Some mutations will have huge effects but most will have slight.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Mutations. Genes change. Your genes aren’t exactly duplicated from your parents. The differences are slight, but given many generations they really do build up.